


Sentiment

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Darcy Lewis was little, she had an imaginary friend. Like most imaginary friends, he disappeared when she got older. Unlike most imaginary friends, he turned out not to be so imaginary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I looked up the script online and found that the film put Darcy at the age of 20, so if my calculations are correct this would put her at age 7.

_(1999)_

  
_“Why are you crying?”_

  
_Darcy had thought she was alone in the playground. All the other kids had gone nearly an hour ago, leaving Darcy on the swing set to cry. Now a strange boy stood in front of her, his piercing green eyes inquiring her own blue ones. The boy was older than Darcy, maybe 10 or 11 years old, and a shock of inky black hair contrasted with his pale skin. He wasn’t anyone Darcy had seen around her small town, not to mention he was dressed in what Darcy thought looked like a Halloween costume._

  
_“What?” Darcy asked her voice thick. She lifted her hand and used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe away the tears as best she could, though her bloodshot eyes still gave her away._   
_“Why are you crying?” the boy asked again, taking a seat on the swing next to her. Darcy sniffed pitifully and hesitated to answer. After a moment however, she caved._   
_“Jordan Devero pushed me and said that I didn’t have any friends ‘cause I’m stupid and weird.” Darcy’s eyes stung with fresh tears at the memory of Jordan and his friend’s mockery and her strange taste. She’d always stood out at her school, but she had tried to be proud of that fact. Now she just felt rejected and lonely._   
_The boy’s eyebrow’s furrowed together in confusion._   
_“Why are you weird?” the boy asked. Darcy laughed slightly. It wasn’t difficult to be considered weird and different in her small, conservative, church-every-Sunday-or-you-were-Hell-spawn town. She was used to weird. She was proud to be weird. It was the word stupid that got to her. Darcy wasn’t stupid in the slightest. She just learned differently from them. She came up with drawings and more creative answers on tests and the teacher would hold it up to the class as an example of “what not to do”_

  
_“I’m weird” Darcy finally answered. “because I’m not like them.”. It was the best she could come up with. The boy remained silent for a moment, and Darcy turned to look at him. There was a flicker of sympathy and understanding in the boy’s eyes before he reached down to the ground and picked two small blue flowers from the grass._   
_“You see these?” he said, holding the flowers up to Darcy. “Two ordinary flowers, right?” Darcy nodded. The boy closed his hands around the flowers, and then whispered words in a strange, melodic language. When he opened his eyes, the flowers were gone, and in their place were two small blue butterflies. They immediately took flight, dancing around Darcy’s head for a moment before disappearing into the sky._

  
_Darcy was, in a word, overjoyed. She’d seen magic tricks on television before, and had loved the mystery behind it, but this was different. This was real magic._   
_“I’m not like the people from my home either.” The boy said suddenly. “Where I’m from, strength is found in fighting and brute force. Not in tricks and intelligence. They see me as weak because I can do magic better than fight.” Darcy stared at him, and then smiled softly._   
_“I think magic’s amazing.” She said. The boy gave her startled look before slowly smiling back. Darcy held out one hand._   
_“I’m Darcy.” She said, and the boy took her hand and shook it._   
_“My name is Loki.” He said._

_....._   
  
_“Where are you from?”_   
_“A land far, far away.”_   
_Darcy elbowed Loki in the ribs_   
_“I’m serious!” Darcy exclaimed._   
_“So am I.” Loki said, laughing. The two of them lay side by side on the seldom used trampoline in Darcy’s backyard. It was beginning to feel like summer, though school was still in for another month, much to Darcy’s dismay._

  
_It had been nearly three months since Loki and Darcy had first met on the swing set, and nearly every day they’d sat together and talked, or played chess (at least Loki did. Darcy moved the pieces around on the board and hoped for the best) or, Darcy’s favourite, magic tricks. Darcy’s parents never really questioned her having an imaginary friend. As far as Darcy knew, they were just happy that she was happy._   
_Even when Darcy was in school, she could sometimes tell that Loki was there too. Quizzes would mysteriously disappear from the teacher’s desk and chalk would suddenly go missing and show up on the other side of the room. Nearly a month ago, Jordan Devero had thrown a wad of gum into Darcy’s hair. Not an hour later, Jordan was found outside with his tongue frozen solid to the flag pole. He didn’t remember going near the flag pole, and it wasn’t nearly cold enough for his tongue to have frozen like that. Darcy had questioned Loki’s involvement in the incident, and though he denied it, his eyes told a different story._   
_“Loki?” Darcy said, “did you tie Ben Sampson’s shoe laces together today?” Though she would never admit it, Darcy had found it a little funny when Ben had stood up in class only to face-plant right into the linoleum floor._

  
_Loki gave Darcy a mischievous half-smile._   
_“Maybe.”_   
_“Loki!!!” Darcy scolded, smacking his shoulder._   
_“He called you a freak again.” Loki said defensively._   
_“That not – it’s just…you shouldn’t hurt people. It’s not right.”_   
_“I didn’t hurt him badly-”_   
_“You know what I mean.” Darcy said shortly. There was a solemn silence between them, and then Loki finally spoke._   
_“I just wanted to look out for you.” Loki said quietly, and Darcy smiled._   
_“I know, just promise you won’t hurt anyone.”_   
_“I promise.” Darcy held up one hand, pinkie finger extended._   
_“Pinkie promise?”_

_“What?” Loki asked, confused. Darcy then remembered that she’d never explained Pinkie Promises to him. She’d explained a lot – Pokemon, Disney movies, Harry Potter – but she had neglected this._

_“Yeah, see-“ she took his hand and linked her pinkie with his. “Now, you have to make a promise, and you have to keep that promise forever.” Loki smiled softly at her and gave her finger a slight squeeze._   
_“I promise that I won’t hurt anyone again, but I also promise that I’ll always look out for you.” Darcy’s heart leapt at those words. She never really had a friend before Loki came along. Now she felt like she had the best friend in the whole world. They lay together on the trampoline for a while longer, watching the sky darken, their fingers still linked._   
_....._   
_As the years passed however, Loki visited Darcy less and less. Game of chess and hide and seek became rarer, and magic tricks became almost completely obsolete. Darcy went from a shy, quiet loner in elementary school to an opinionated, headstrong computer geek in junior high. In those years Loki had changed too. He’d become more distant, colder even. He hardly visited her anymore, and when he did his visits were brief and terse. Darcy wanted to ask what was wrong, but she knew that even if she did he wouldn’t tell her._   
_The eve of her 13th birthday was the last time Darcy saw him. He came into her room just before midnight, and Darcy sat bolt upright in her bed._   
_“Loki?” she said. She knew by now that she should accept that he was a figure of her imagination, her ‘Peter Pan’ as she liked to call him. Part of her never could accept that though. Now he stood by her window, smiling sadly at her. He walked over to her, and laid a small, wooden box on her bedside table._

  
_“Happy birthday, Darcy.” He said, brushing a strand of hair away from her face tenderly. Darcy blinked and he was gone. She called his name out a moment later, hoping he’d answer, but there was no one there. She reached over and opened the small wooden box. Inside there was a small, silver locket. It was oval shaped, and in the center was a single green gem. It was lovely, and Darcy immediately fastened it around her neck. Holding back tears, she eventually drifted off the sleep, half convinced that the locket would be gone in the morning, and everything about Loki had been some elaborate dream. Morning came, and the locket was still around her neck._   
_The inspected it, and attempted to open it once more. This time, the clasp unlocked, and the locket opened. There was no picture inside, and no note; only two small, blue butterflies that flew around her room before escaping out the open window._

_....._   
_For seven years Darcy never took the locket off. It felt like the only proof she had that Loki hadn’t been imaginary. She thought she’d never see him again, thought that maybe she had imagined him, that she’d bought the locket herself and convinced herself that he’d gotten it for her. For seven years Darcy had tried to forget Loki._

  
_Until, seven years later, Darcy had applied to intern for Jane Foster._


	2. Ghosts of our Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Darcy Lewis was little, she had an imaginary friend. Like most imaginary friends, he disappeared when she got older. Unlike most imaginary friends, he turned out not to be so imaginary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not going to lie here guys, I totally teared up while writing this chapter. I really really hope that I got the characters right here, and that everything makes sense and such.

Director Nick Fury had never fully understood Darcy Lewis. Most of the time he felt it was safer that way. Other times he wondered why on earth she had signed onto this. Darcy Lewis wasn’t a scientist. She didn’t understand science, and quite frankly didn’t seem to want to. So why she was so unbelievably determined to work on the P.E.G.A.S.U.S. Project – even as a simple assistant – had been a completely mystery to Fury. How she’d even found out about said project, Fury hadn’t the slightest clue. Darcy Lewis had been working for S.H.I.E.L.D. for the better part of a year now as an assistant to the P.E.G.A.S.U.S. Project, though Fury had expected her to continue interning for Jane, but Darcy had insisted on being a part of the Project so vehemently that Fury had finally said yes just to get some peace from her.

Fury had been wary of hiring somebody so young, and with such little experience in the world of science, but Darcy turned out to have an aptitude for technology, not to mention she was one of the hardest workers on the team, even as a simple note-taker. She almost seemed to be… _obsessed_ , not with the Project itself, but with the main study of the Project – the Tesseract. It seemed to draw both Dr. Selvig and Darcy in hypnotically, but while Selvig treated the Tesseract like some temperamental diamond, Darcy looked at it like it was a bomb waiting to explode, like it was both her only hope and her worst nightmare.

 .....

“Talk to me, Doctor.”

Darcy looked up from her scribble-covered notepad, and automatically straightened her posture as Director Fury entered the lab. Working at S.H.I.EL.D., and more specifically around Fury and Coulson, had definitely given Darcy a much more professional and mature demeanour. She was still her usual quirky, slightly kooky self in the private of her apartment or around close friends, but at her work an internal switch flicked onto a much more mellow conduct.

“The Tesseract is misbehaving.” Darcy heard Dr. Selvig say as one of the other scientists prodded the Tesseract, making it glow sharply and emit an irradiant puff of smoke.

“Is that supposed to be funny?” asked Fury tensely, approaching Dr. Selvig.

“No, it’s not funny at all. The Tesseract is not only active it’s…behaving.”

At these words, Fury noticed Darcy give a wary glance at the Tesseract and move further behind the nearest lab table, like she was ready to take cover any second. Fury heeded it was a smart move since, if Dr. Selvig was correct, taking cover was a likely necessity.

“How soon can you pull the plug?” asked Fury, circling back to the task at hand.

“She’s an energy source,” replied Dr. Selvig brusquely, “we turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level-”

“You’ve prepared for this doctor. Harnessing energy from space.” Fury interrupted.

“Sir,” Darcy finally spoke. “Dr. Selvig’s calculations are far from complete, not to mention that the Tesseract keeps throwing interference – radiation, by the looks of it.” She said, reading off her notes.

“Radiation?” Fury asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Low levels of gamma radiation – nothing harmful.” said Dr. Selvig dismissively.

“That can be harmful.” Fury said, and by his tone Darcy guessed that there was a history behind those words – a history she wasn’t too intent on finding out.

“Where’s Agent Barton?” Fury asked suddenly. Darcy turned back to the notes on her clipboard, tuning out the conversation.

When Director Fury turned his eye away from her, Darcy allowed her shoulders to curl inwards in a defensive motion. What the hell was she doing here? She wasn’t a scientist, why the hell had she been so insistent to be signed onto this project? Of course Darcy knew that answer to that. She was looking for _him_. Seven years of her life spent trying to push him out of her mind, of trying to convince herself he was just imaginary, and now she was trying to find him.

 She sighed and, almost automatically, toyed with the necklace that had never left her neck since she was thirteen years old. Making sure no one was paying attention – S.H.I.E.L.D. had a strict no-jewellery rule – she extracted the necklace from underneath her work blouse. The small, silver locket shown dimly in the glow light of the Tesseract, and the green gem in the centre looked so dark it was almost black. She missed him, missed playing hide and seek (which he always cheated at, she knew), missed watching the sky darken while laying on her old trampoline, missed him so horribly it was like a dull ache pulled at her chest every time she thought of him.

A sudden flux from the Tesseract make Darcy jump, the locket falling from her grasp and back onto her collarbone. Flashes and smoke conveyed from the Cube, and a small tremor shook the lab. Darcy, feeling panic rise in her chest, gripped the edge of the lab table to stop her hands from shaking. Everybody else stood to attention, readying weapons and fidgeting with machines. The flashes of light had now turned to what looked like miniature lightning strikes. A swirl of blue smoke and light had begun on one side of the Tesseract, and suddenly a stream of white light had shot from it and towards a platform a few feet away.

At this, Darcy finally let her panic take control, and she tucked behind the table, crouching low and listening. There was a sound akin to that of a plane starting up, and then a blast of energy swept the lab, thankfully not powerful enough to knock anything over. The energy then rose up, and Darcy saw it start to congregate at the highest peak in the ceiling above. There was near silence in the lab, save for somebody’s ragged breathing. Feeling as though her heart was going to beat right out of her chest, Darcy took a quick look from behind the table. On the platform where the Tesseract’s energy stream had gone, there was now a man. Smoke seemed to rise from him, and from where Darcy could see, he seemed to be holding some kind of blade.

Quickly retreating back behind the table, Darcy heard Fury call out for the man to drop the weapon. There was a split second of silence, before the sound of explosions and gun shots rang out. Stifling a scream and bringing her knees up to her chest, she covered her ears like a child, trying in vain to drown out the sound of agent’s and scientists final moments around her. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the chaos stopped. Darcy could still hear the ragged breaths of the man who had emerged from the portal, and she attempted to curl up even more so, fighting back tears that threatened to fall. The lab lay in ruins around her. Darcy’s table was, thankfully, untouched in the destruction. She felt a sickening churning start in her stomach, and she prayed she wouldn’t be sick and give away her hiding spot, though some part of her dreaded that she wouldn’t be hidden for long.

There were voices now, muffled from Darcy’s hands over her ears. Motivated by some sick form of curiosity, she displaced her hands and listened

 “Please don’t,” said an unfamiliar, almost polite voice. Darcy could only assume it was the man who had emerged from the Tesseract light. “I still need that.”

“This doesn’t have to get any messier.” Fury tried negotiating, and the ever-snarky part of Darcy snorted internally. _Messy_ was the understatement of the year.

“Oh course it does.” The man spoke again. “I’ve come too far for anything else.” A tone of malice had replaced the mockingly polite one. Darcy suddenly wished she’d brought her taser along with her today. She could have possibly ambushed him, giving them enough time-

_No, stupid idea Darcy. You’d be dead in a sec-_

“I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

The world went cold and muffled, like somebody had just plunged her into ice cold water. The sick feeling in her stomach returned in tenfold, and the tears she’d held back now fell without restraint.

No. No, no, no, no. This wasn’t him. This was somebody else, a stranger, not the boy Darcy had known as a child, not her best and only friend growing up. Not the same boy who had shown her magic tricks, who had made butterflies from flower petals, who let her win at chess, just to see her smile. Not him. _Please, not him. **Please.**_ Holding back a sob that was now building in her throat, Darcy listened to the conversation now taking place between Fury and…’Loki’.

“We have no quarrel with your people.” Fury said, trying once more to negotiate.

“An ant has no quarrel with a boot.” ‘Loki’ said simply.

“Are you planning to step on us?” Fury asked, he tone going to negotiating to threatening.

“I come with glad tidings, of a world made free.” Darcy listened to ‘Loki’, noting the insanity veiled in his voice, the mocking sanguinity in it.

“Free from what?”

“Freedom. Freedom is life’s great lie. Once you accept that in your heart,” ‘Loki’ said, his voice turning to almost a whisper. “You will know peace.”

 “Yeah, you say peace. I kinda think you mean the other thing.”

There was a slight snuffling noise from behind one of the lab tables. The mind controlled soldiers and doctors all stood to attention. Loki turned towards it, and with an unsettling look of amusement on his face, he approached the table almost soundlessly. In one quick movement, he had grabbed the young girl hiding behind it. She screamed in surprise more than pain, and Fury tried to move forward to help her, but a mind-controlled Agent Barton had a gun trained him the moment he moved.

Loki set the girl down roughly, and Fury realized the girl was Selvig’s assistant, Darcy. Her head was down, a curtain of chocolate brown hair obscuring most of her face. She was crying, Fury knew this from the small sniffles and hiccupping gasps emitting from behind the veil of hair. With a cruel smirk painted on his face, Loki moved the spear’s blade under Darcy’s chin and forced it upwards. He was about to speak, about to make some remark before putting her under the Mind Gem’s control, when his eyes met her large blue ones. 

Fury watched in absolute bewilderment as Loki went absolutely still, the near-insane, maniacal demeanour he had been conveying had gone, and his look of cruel amusement melting away suddenly to reveal and expression of shock, disbelief, horror and…recognition?  Fury’s good eye flickered between the two. What the fuck was going on? Did they _know_ each other?

His mind immediately flashed to Darcy’s insistence on being a part of the Tesseract project. A theory formed in Fury’s mind for a split second, that Darcy had helped Loki in some way, but the theory was completely abolished the moment Fury’s eye flickered back to Darcy’s face. Horror; sadness; heartbreak; all those emotions were playing out across Darcy’s face, along with one which Fury couldn’t quite place.  

Loki had quickly pulled the spear away from Darcy and started towards her again, cautiously this time. His eyes moved from her face to the small, silver locket around her neck that Fury had never noticed before. For a split second, Fury could have sworn he heard Loki whisper Darcy’s name softly before extending one hand outwards, almost as if to tenderly wipe away her tears.

            She flinched away from his touch like he was going to burn her. She stepped backwards so quickly she almost tripped over her own feet. It was then that Fury realized the emotion that he couldn’t quite place before. Betrayal; Darcy’s eyes were searching Loki’s with one word etched into them:

_Why?_

    “Sir, this place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us.” Agent Barton interrupted suddenly, having just noticed the Tesseract energy on the ceiling. “He means to bury us”.

    “He’s right, the portal’s collapsing in on itself. We’ve got maybe two minutes before this goes critical!” Selvig confirmed. Loki paid no attention to either of them. His eyes were still fixed on Darcy.

    “Sir!” Dr. Selvig yelled again, and this time Loki turned to them. The cold, calculating look of when he first arrived had returned.

            “Well then.” He said, and gave some kind of telepathic order to Agent Barton. At least that’s what Fury assumed had happened, because the last thing he saw before Barton pulled the trigger was Loki pulling Darcy towards him and wrapping his arm around her shoulders in an almost affectionate manner.

.....

            The following moments were complete chaos. Darcy was led from the lab after a single gunshot rang out into the underground parking lot. Barton yelled something about needing the cars, but Darcy wasn’t really listening. Shock was setting into her system, making her numb and robotic. Agent Hill’s walkie-talkie went off as Loki escorted Darcy into the back of one of one of the trucks. Fury’s voice came through the static, and Agent Hill dived down behind a metal bunker as Barton and the other possessed agents fired bullets at her. The truck Loki and Darcy occupied sped off, and Darcy heard shots being fired from Agent Hill.

            “Get down!” Loki said sharply before forcibly pushing Darcy to the floor of the truck-back to avoid the bullets.

            “Stay there.” He muttered, and Darcy had no qualms about it. In a childish attempt to disappear, she curled herself into a fetal position, and once more covered her ears and closed her eyes. She could hear the muffled sounds of more gunshots, screeching tires, explosions and feel the truck jerking left and right, hitting obstacles and she could have sworn she heard a helicopter hovering above somewhere.

            Finally, after what felt like both seconds and hours, the gunshots and explosions subsided. The car’s jerky driving turned smoother, and Darcy finally sat up and looked around. Loki noticed her movement, and turned to her.

            “Are you alright? He asked, moving as if to place his hand on her shoulder. She recoiled sharply, pressing herself against the side of the truck-bed to avoid his touch. He stopped, and for a moment Darcy thought he was going to speak again. Instead Loki just turned away and leaned wearily against the truck’s roof. Darcy felt a spark of concern, but opted to ignore it. Instead she watched the scenery go by without really seeing it as more tears welled up and slid down her face.


	3. Her Hope Lies in Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Darcy Lewis was little, she had an imaginary friend. Like most imaginary friends, he disappeared when she got older. Unlike most imaginary friends, he turned out not to be so imaginary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a suggestion, but listening to Mumford and Son's song 'Little Lion Man' goes really well with this chapter!

**_All things truly wicked start from an innocence_ **

**Earnest Hemingway, _A Moveable Feast_**

_It was Darcy’s eighth birthday. She was sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor across from Loki, celebrating the event with a piece of birthday cake smuggled from the refrigerator and a game of ‘Go Fish’._

_“When’s your birthday Loki?” Darcy asked as she fished for a two, and disappointingly picked up a seven._

_“I don’t really…have a birthday.” Loki said, before turning the conversation quickly back to the card game. “Do you have any Kings?”_

_“Go Fish, and you **always** say that.” Darcy said glumly. Loki raised an eyebrow._

_“I always say ‘do you have any kings?” he said, and gave a brash half-smile as Darcy picked up a spare card from the pile and threw it at him._

_“You know what I mean!” she said. “I ask you something and then you don’t ever answer! It’s always ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t really have one’ or you change the subject.” Darcy pouted. “We celebrate my birthday, we should celebrate yours too.”_

_Loki thought on this for a moment, before nodding in agreement._

_“So, when is your birthday?” Darcy asked, elated that she was finally getting an answer out of him._

_“In the summer. June, to be exact, the fifteenth.” He said, before asking if she had any Aces._

_“Are you still going to be here for my next birthday?” she asked as she grudgingly handed over her Ace of Hearts._

_“I’ll be here for all your birthdays, Darcy.” Loki said, suddenly looking serious, almost sad. He looked up at Darcy, his lips quirking up in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes._

_“I’ll always be your friend Darcy. I promise.”_

_....._

            Darcy’s world passed by in a blur as a warm, numbing feeling over-took her. It was shock, more than likely. She didn’t really care. Her mind whirled through every moment, every decision that had led her to this moment in time; taking the intern job for Jane Foster, Thor falling from the sky, flipping through the mythology book and spying Loki’s name printed on the pages, hours upon hours of research. Then the fire-breathing robot from Hell had appeared and Thor had mentioned that it was his brother’s doing. His brother Loki. After that Darcy’s world started to unravel quickly. Jane and Erik, distracted by S.H.I.E.L.D and Thor’s departure, were oblivious to Darcy’s distress. She was thankful for this, since diving into the past and explaining everything was _not_ on her ‘would love to do’ list.

            After the depression had passed, Darcy had started an obsessive quest for answers. Jane hadn’t been the only one praying for Thor to come back for the past year now. Eventually, Darcy figured taking matters into her own hands was the only chance she had. She’d snooped through Erik’s computer files concerning the P.E.G.A.S.U.S. project at S.H.I.E.L.D. (in her defence, he really should have picked a better password than ‘CulverU’). The second that the she read that Tesseract was ‘suspected to be of Asgardian origins’, she persisted Director Fury for weeks about being a part of the project. Finally, miraculously he had relented.

Now, after almost six months had passed, she dimly observed her concrete surroundings, the damp feel of the air, the intricate hallways and smell of wet rock and underground. She was lead into a small, dark room and left there. They didn’t tie her up, or even put lock on the door. They didn’t anticipate her to try and make an escape, and they were right in that. She didn’t even know where the hell she was, besides underground. Her legs didn’t even want to seem to work. Everything about her felt heavy, like her bones had turned to lead and her blood to cement. She sat alone in the dark, dimly thinking about how, if it was any other hostage-like situation, she’d be kicking and screaming. She’d put everything she had into finding a way out. It seemed now that her every emotion had shut itself off, hidden itself away, leaving Darcy in a near catatonic state.

            A state that was only broken when Loki walked into the room.

            The moment the tall, leather-clad God entered the room, a spark flared in Darcy’s chest. The numbness began to quell as Loki stood in front of her, almost awkwardly, before finally meeting her eyes.

            “Darcy-“he started, his voice surprisingly soft. Whatever he planned on saying, Darcy never knew.

            “What.” She bit out, her voice hard and cold as ice. “What could you _possibly_ say to me right now?” She’s caught him off-guard, she knew, and part of her felt proud of it. The spark in her chest had caught flame now, and her words were like hot flames she wished to burn into him.

            “You left. You left me, and for seven _goddamn_ years I wondered if you were even real! If I was just crazy! I wanted to find you, I wanted to know- I wanted answers, and then this – _this_ is how I find you again?” her voice broke at ‘find’ but she continued.

            “You appear out of some cosmic Rubik’s cube, you destroy half the lab, and then you announce your insane intention of taking over the world? And then you decide to bring me along for the ride? What the _hell_ is going on in your brain right now, that you have actually become capable of- of killing people!?!?” She was standing now, an action she wasn’t even aware of doing. Loki’s expression was undecipherable, but Darcy could have sworn a moment of regret flashed in his eyes.

            “You know I didn’t even want to believe it was you? That I couldn’t possibly think that the boy that I knew could possibly be capable of this? That it was somebody else that had sent the Hell-Bot to New Mexico –”

            “What?” Loki finally spoke, his eyebrows furrowing together in confusion. Darcy paused in her rambling, then realizing what he meant, have a humourless laugh.

            “You didn’t know? I was Jane Foster’s intern. _I was there_ , Loki.” She said coldly. Darcy was fully aware of the tears now streaming down her face, obscuring her vision for a moment. She was pretty sure, however, that the look of horror that flashed in Loki’s eyes wasn’t her imagination.

            “Darcy,” he started slowly, his voice sounding on the verge of breaking. “if I had _any_ idea that you’d been there-”

            “What!?” Darcy cut in, practically screaming now. “you wouldn’t have razed half the town to the ground? Oh well, good to know I was the deciding factor in that!” her lungs began to ache from the combination of crying and yelling, and a cold seeped under her skin into her bones, making her shiver.

            A moment of quiet hung between them, the only noise in the room being Darcy’s ragged breathes. Loki was standing so still, Darcy could have mistaken him for a statue. Neither of them were looking each other in the eye. The anger in Darcy’s chest quelled, only to be replaced with a cold, aching sadness.

            “You were my best friend Loki,” she near whispered, her voice thick with tears.“and now I have no idea who you are anymore. I used to be afraid of monsters as a kid, but now….I never thought one would be right in front of me.”

            The silence filling the room was almost suffocating. Darcy finally looked up at Loki, but he wasn’t looking at her, however. He didn’t seem to be there anymore, his eyes fixed on the wall behind her. Darcy could have sworn she caught a glimmer of tears in his eyes, but he simply gave her a short nod, before turning on his feel and walking out the door. Alone again, Darcy’s tears seemed to increase ten-fold. She collapsed on the floor, her cries echoing in the small, concrete room.

.....

            The Hellicarrier was definitely something to behold. Steve Rogers had been used to advanced technology – at least, advanced for the 1940’s. Now it seemed that nothing could be advanced enough. Everyday there seemed to be an advertisement for something new on the shiny, holographic billboards in the city. It gave him a headache. Though not nearly a bad of a headache as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s debriefing package had given him. The details had been simple enough; the Tesseract had been taken from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody by this Loki guy, and the doctor in charge and the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent guarding it had been taken as well.

            There was one detail however, that Steve had questions about.

“Sir,” Steve addressed Fury after the shock and awe of first seeing the Hellicarrier had passed. “you mentioned in the debriefing package that this Loki guy might have been…emotionally compromised? What did you mean?”

            Fury nodded his head at Natasha, who immediately stood and walked over to a holographic screen. A second later Steve was staring at the profile of a young girl, her file reading her to be twenty-one. She was pretty, with dark brown hair and large blue eyes. The name ‘Darcy Lewis’ was labelled in bright red at the top.

            “She’s Dr. Selvig’s assistant.” Fury said. “She was working on the researching the Tesseract with him; practically begged to be a part of it” Fury paused, a troubled look washing over his face.

            “Loki comes to Earth and levels half the lab, without question, without caring, and either killing or mind-controlling anyone in his way. He sees her” Fury pointed at Darcy’s profile “and stops dead.”

            “Stops?” Steve asked, an uneasy feeling coming over him.

            “He knew her name.” Natasha said, glancing warily at Darcy’s picture on the screen.

            “Loki knew her?” Steve asked.

            “More than that,” Fury said. “It looked like he cared about her.”

            “Cared about her?”Steve asked, taken aback. “Was she on his side?”

            “I had thought so at first,” Fury said, “even with Barton assuring me that both Selvig and Lewis were clean. But the look on her face when she saw Loki…she wasn’t happy to see him.”

            An uneasy feeling was forming in the back of Steve’s mind. Bad guys were bad enough, but bad guys with a heart, with a human weakness, they were a different story.

.....

            _She wasn’t supposed to be here, she was **never** supposed to be here._

            Loki paced back and forth in the small space away from the scientists working away at the Tesseract. The underground tunnels had made him feel like an animal in a cage to begin with, but now he felt like he had been buried alive.

            Darcy hated him. No, it was beyond hatred. It was the hatred that could only be born from betrayal. It was loathing. _Monster_ she had called him. That word made his throat burn and his chest ache.

            _She wasn’t supposed to be here._

            His thoughts were reeling at impossible speed. The Destroyer…he could have killed her. He hadn’t even known she’d been there. Like he hadn’t known she’d been here, in the lab. She didn’t understand, she didn’t _know._

_She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was **never supposed to be here.**_

            In a sudden flash of rage, Loki kicked a metal set of draws nearly clear across the room. Around him, the mortal scientists gave a startled, nervous look, but continued working. Breathing heavily and suddenly exhausted, Loki sat down on the stone steps beside him. He hadn’t thought he’d ever see Darcy again. She’d grown up, changed, become somebody else.

            So had he, he realized with a humourless scoff. She still wore the necklace he’d given her. Something stirred in Loki’s chest at that thought.

            The Sceptre suddenly hummed and glowed brightly in his hand. Loki closed his eyes. They were calling.


	4. Where was it my fault in loving you with my whole heart?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Darcy Lewis was little, she had an imaginary friend. Like most imaginary friends, he disappeared when she got older. Unlike most imaginary friends, he turned out not to be so imaginary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Dusts cobwebs off of fic* oh, hi guys. It’s been a while. Oops.   
> No, seriously, I’m so sorry for how long this took to write/update. Life has been kind of wonky for me right now (emotionally wise) and let me tell you, my muse was being a little asshole these past few weeks. Also, I’ve planned this out and this isn’t going to be a very long story; about 6-7 chapters at the most. Also, chapter name is lyrics of a Mumford and Sons song (basically the band that inspired this fic).

            The sounds of boots hitting concrete, whirling machinery and dripping water met Darcy as she warily slipped through the metal door of her temporary shelter. People were scurrying everywhere, carrying distorted pieces of metal, bottles of chemicals or marching in military format, holding guns aloft. Darcy carefully avoided eye contact with all of them. She seemed invisible to them as they all tread past her without a glance.

            The tunnel lead to an open space, filled with workers and metal tubes and work tables, almost a replica of the workshop at the S.H.I.E.L.D. location where Loki had arrived. Erik was working away hat some metal contraption along with the Tesseract, an eerie, upbeat expression on his face and his eyes an unnatural, glowing blue. Darcy’s nausea increased, and she made sure to avoid him. In her path to avoid Erik, Darcy was led straight to where Barton and Loki were talking. Loki spotted her before she saw him, his expression changing from cold and severe to sudden concern and surprise.

            Darcy, almost by instinct, avoided his gaze. It was not out of anger, however, but now a sad ache grew in her chest whenever she saw him. Her anger has been extinguished for now, after a long time sitting alone in her small, cold room, though whether or not this storm was truly over or if she was only in the eye of it, she didn’t know. For now though, the hurricane in her heart and in her mind has ceased.  

            “Are you alright?” a voice asked, making her start. She’d been so enclosed in her thoughts that she hadn’t even noticed Loki having walked over to her.

            “Oh yeah,” she said with brazen sarcasm, “just peachy.”

            “I didn’t mean…” Loki said, stopping short. God, he was giving Darcy emotional whiplash. One minute, he was a tyrant, a menacing invader destroying everything in his path, and the next he was the boy she’d known as a child, who would have rather walked on broken glass than ever hurt her. Most of the time, she didn’t even know who she was looking at anymore; she didn’t know who he had become, or why.

            “What happened to you?” she asked quietly, almost sure he wouldn’t have heard her. The start he gave and look of surprise and turmoil on his face told her differently. He opened his mouth, as if to answer, but were interrupted as Agent Barton announced that they were ready. The vulnerability melted from Loki’s face, and the cold façade returned. Before Darcy was out of earshot however, she saw Loki turn to Agent Barton and mutter the words “Look after her.”

*****

 

“He really grows on you doesn’t he?” Banner joked, ever so slightly breaking the tension in the room after Director Fury’s chilling conversation with a now-captive Loki.

            “Loki’s going to drag this out. So…Thor, what’s his play?” Steve asked the pensive God standing on the other side of the table.

            “He has an army called the Chitauri. They’re not of Asgard nor of any world known.” Thor answered, turning to his companions. “He means to lead them against your people, and they will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.”

            “An army from outer space.” Steve summed up, not quite believing the words even as he said them.

            “So he’s building another portal.” Bruce interjected. “That’s what he needs Erik Selvig for.”

            “Selvig?” Thor asked, a sudden look of concern coming over his face.

            “He’s an astrophysicist.” Bruce said

            “He’s a friend.”  Thor said quietly. A silent exchange was shared between Natasha and Steve, much to both Thor and Bruce’s confusion.

            “What is it?” Thor asked.

            “If you knew Selvig, did you also know his assistant?” Steve asked.

            “His assistant?” Thor asked again, his mind immediately going to Jane, and the worry that something had happened to her.

            “A young girl, she was working with him in New Mexico. Her name’s Darcy Lewis.” Natasha clarified. Though it brought him some relief that Jane was not in danger, Thor felt his heart sink all the same.

            “Darcy…yes I know her, is she harmed?”

            “No, not as far as we know.” Natasha assured. “That’s the thing. Loki didn’t lay a finger on her. According to Director Fury, Darcy steps into the line of vision and Loki just stops.”

            “Stops?” Thor repeated, furrowing his brow.

            “Yeah, like he knew her – and cared for her.”

            Thor contemplated this in silent confusion.

            “You didn’t know this?” Natasha asked, watching him carefully.

            “No.” Thor said quietly. “I had no idea Loki ever knew her.”

            “Yeah, well no offence,” said Tony, simultaneously announcing his presence to the rest of the group, “but there seems to be a lot about Loki you didn’t know.”

*****

            Darcy’s favourite game when she was a child was hide and seek. She was amazing at it. Nobody had been able to find her. Not her mother, nor her father. She’d even been able to beat Loki at it several times. She’d been an expert at finding a small, concealed place to huddle down, and wait until the coast was clear, before scurrying to another one.

            Clearly the mind-controlled agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had never had much time for hide and seek. Either that or they were so busy in their own tasks, they had simply ignored her sneaking onto the Helicarrier behind the group of SWAT-like agents. They’d been just as oblivious as she listened into their discussion over the blue prints of the Helicarrier, overhearing everything from where which agents were going to sneak in, to the exact location of where Loki was being held.

            The last indication that anyone had noticed her was Agent Barton’s hand on her shoulder and a clipped “stay here” before they marched towards the exit. Staying put was not Darcy’s plan. Quite frankly, she didn’t even really have a plan. She thought that maybe she should have considered that, but it was too late for that now. Darcy was playing hide and seek, except in this game, she was both hiding and seeking.

*******

            The tension had collapsed into pandemonium. The Helicarrier was careening towards the ground, leaving a trail of black smoke as it fell. The chaos served its purpose for Darcy as she ran through the maze of hallways towards Loki holding cell without being noticed. The disconcerting feeling of the floor shaking beneath her made her heart pound in her chest, but it was too late to turn back now. Maybe this hadn’t been the best plan, but Darcy’s mind seemed to have gone to a ‘let’s sneak onto the Helicarrier now and figure it out as we go’ mode.

            She turned the corridor into the holding cell where Loki was, only instead of him being held in the circular glass enclosure, it was Thor. A mind-controlled guard stood watch just in the doorway, and Loki was nearby, his hand hovering over a control panel that Darcy guessed would either implode the glass confinement, or drop it into open air. Either way, Darcy very highly doubted Loki was simply letting Thor out of the cage.

            She hadn’t even realized she’d let out a yell until both Thor and Loki gave a start and turned towards her. Her body seemed to be reacting before her brain did as of late, acting before her mind could catch up. Thor yelled to Darcy, but she remained fixated on Loki, and vise versa. The guard whirled around and made a grab for her, his expression hostile.

            “Don’t touch her!” Loki’s voice rang out, moving away from the control panel and towards the doorway. The guard stopped dead, his expression unchanged even at Loki’s outburst. Thor had gone silent; his eyes were darting between his brother and Darcy, his mind trying to understand the connection between them. Darcy’s attention turned back to Loki, who was staring at her with a expression somewhere between absolute fury and bewilderment.

            “Don’t.” Darcy said softly, reaching her hand out towards him, some part of her trying to coax him away. Loki had gone still, his face becoming unreadable, but his eyes flickering back to the control panel. Darcy took a step forward, hand still outstretched, and for a split second, it seemed that Loki was going to respond. Then a low thud came from behind her, and as she turned she found the guard lying unconscious, and Agent Coulson standing in his place, a weapon in his hand that resembled a hybrid between a gun and a flamethrower.

            “It’s all right now, Ms. Lewis.” He said calmly, the weapon pointed directly at Loki. “Just come this way, it’s all right.”

            Darcy had gone still, her eyes wide and heart beating almost painfully fast. Every emotion had been stripped away and hidden away, save for one; fear. Fear unlike she’d felt since Loki had destroyed the S.H.I.E.L.D lab two days ago. Only instead of fear of him, this time she felt fear _for_ him. Keeping her eyes on Coulson, she stepped right in the line of fire between Loki and Coulson.

            “Darcy,” Loki said, his voice low and panicked. Coulson’s face remained calm, but his eyes widened with shock.

            “Miss Lewis-” he started, but Darcy interrupted him.

            “Don’t hurt him.” She said, her hand outstretched in a defensive manner.

            “Darcy.” Loki said again, his voice urgent.

            “Step aside, miss Lew-.” Coulson attempted reason again.

            “Don’t hurt him!” Darcy yelled, her voice edging on hysterical. She turned to Loki, to tell him to try and get out, but another low thud from behind her made her stop. She turned, a feeling of déjà vu coming over her, to find Coulson now unconscious, and Loki standing behind him, sceptre in hand. Whirling around, Darcy watched as the Loki near the control panel faded into thin air. A hand on her arm made her start, and she turned back to find Loki – solid, none-duplicate Loki – with his hand outstretched.

            Darcy turned to look at Thor, who was watching her as well. She could stay on the Helicarrier. She could cooperate, tell them what she knew. She could work with them to stop Loki. She would only be helping S.H.I.E.L.D., she realized. They weren’t the ones that needed her help.

            Loki was.

            Darcy could only pray that Thor would understand, and that she would have the opportunity to explain everything to him, to all of them. For now though, she could only try to convey an apologetic expression as she took Loki’s hand and disappeared through the doorway, leaving Thor in the glass cage.


End file.
